Bachelor of Fine Arts

The graphic design program at MassArt prepares students for the rigors of professional practice.

From the page to the screen to the environment, graphic design is central to how we construct and convey meaning within communication design. The Graphic Design Department provides students with a robust working knowledge of print design, information design, branding, and dynamic media (experience design). Our students learn by doing in studio classes led by a faculty of practicing designers and design educators, each accomplished in their area of expertise. The fundamentals of design remain consistent across media: color must enhance meaning, typography must be legible to communicate, and images must strengthen the message. Traditional manual skills such as hand lettering and drawing, and sophisticated graphics software are part of the spectrum of tools available to today's graphic designers. Students are challenged to develop design solutions while experimenting with a wide range of media including package design, book and magazine layouts, interactive communication, letterpress, and the creation of graphic identities and branded experiences.

The graphic design faculty inspires and advocates that students not only value structure, surface, and form, but also engagements and interactions of design with clients, audiences, and the culture at large. The essential operation of the graphic design department is to provide students with an educational environment in which to explore theoretical, practical and technical applications relative to a variety of design problems. Through a sequenced combination of required courses in the major, studio electives, technical workshops and computer lab-based courses, students are exposed to intensive critique as well as discussions and lectures. They learn to speak intelligently about their own work and the work of their classmates, in preparation for the increasingly team-based professional environment in which they will find themselves upon graduation.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Brian Collins

Graphic Design

Design's greatest achievements in the world are not the result of problem solving, a limiting cliche according to Collins. They're the result of problem seeking. They emerge from an overlap between what the world needs and what designers want to accomplish as creative people. "As designers, we can no longer wait for problems to cross our desk," he notes. "We must discover answers to questions people don’t even know how to ask."